erodyne Bollywood meets Hollywood is an excellent movie. The characters are well drawn out, and the visuals beautiful. It is in English without the subtitles, and for an English speaker this is a plus. I love all that is Indian, and when I can just immerse myself in the experience; even better. I am not always a fan of the persistent music; however, when the music is beautiful and related to actual events, visually stunning, then the song and dance is a welcome addition. This is an enjoyable movie with beautiful characters both artistically and visually. Many of the characters are a staple of a Deepa Mehta film, and as always deliver on a promise. Lisa Ray is stunning, and has a talent that needs to be explored.

idolessence I am a devoted fan to Deepa Mehta's Earth, Water, and Fire trilogy which I have found deeply moving. However, this film I could barely sit through. I have seen a few (quite a few) Bollywood films and it would be difficult to create a send-up of a genre that is already a send-up itself. Bollywood films are already exaggerated, colorful, and dramatic and brimming with stereotypes. Deepa's film, I'm sad to say, was a terrible disappointment. It lacked any kind of originality, insight, or even good dance/song numbers (the best part of the film I thought was the rooftop number)which is the essence of Bollywood films. Given the power and intensity of her other films, this was an embarrassment. What was she thinking???

rlelias B/H stands up as a comedy AND an affectionate parody of Bollywood formula romances. The very title underscores the love-hate relationship many contemporary South Asian filmmakers feel about the Hollywood hegemon (see http://www.thefilmjournal.com/issue9/bollywood.html ). As such, it offers a sly reworking of the Pretty Woman formula, with an Indian twist – which raises the question of why Mehta's writers chose THAT Hollywood movie to build a comic plot upon. One answer requires examination of how women, especially young women, are depicted in Bollywood movies, which valorize – even enforce – Ramayana-like ideals of female purity versus the reality and problems of female identity in a modern world. Compare Mehta's Fire. The comedy and parody in B/H offers a different take on a Mehta theme. The Shakespeare-quoting grandmother reflects another aspect of the film's comic concern with the clash between tradition and modernity – here, the kind of British-inspired education the grandmother would have received, which often required students to memorize whole scenes from Shakespeare (whose plays were and are very popular in India). The comic turnabout at the end might be examined in light of equally sudden turnabouts in movies like DDLJ, the difference being that the main blocking character at the end of B/H is Sunita herself. Her father, minutes before, reverses himself BECAUSE he has seen movies like that one. A very "filmi" intrusion into the comic plot, but (true to Mehta's sympathies) it is Sunita herself who becomes – for a moment – the blocking character whose needs must be recognized. It's a matter of HER identity, albeit within the framework of Bollywood comic romance. As such, her situation offers, for the perceptive, a bittersweet comic take on a question Mehta raises more seriously elsewhere. B/H is a parody, yes, but it has a serious side as well. Think about this while you laugh.

SilentDeb I enjoyed this film immensely, and found it a humorous take on second-generation Indo-Canadian life. The songs were enjoyable (my only complaint about the film is that the songs weren't subtitled - a bit frustrating for those of us that don't speak Hindi!), and I recommend the film highly - great fun!